Eleventh Hour
by missabi
Summary: [auootp] All Hallow's Eve, the night when the worlds of the living and the realm of the dead are open to each other, the night when something from Beyond the Veil might find its way home.


_disclaimer: don't own, don't pretend to own, don't even fantasize about owning; just playing with the characters and the storyline a little_

_notes:_ **!!PLEASE READ THESE!!** ADL? look in the profile. anyways, Sirius' death has always left a hole in me, as much the same as many other people, i think. i've almost completely blocked out the entire thing, and i've only ever read ootp and hbp ONCE because of Sirius, despite the fact that i've read all the others too many times to count before and since they were realised. finally, i think, i'm ready to face it -- though how a fic about saving him from the Veil is supposed to show that, i don't know. just go with it, k? and i'll be back with the rest of this story as soon as i've finished reading ootp and hbp again to get more of a feel for, well, things. once again, like ADL, this is already complete, and i promise you this time you'll get all of it -- i actually like it!

_warnings_: reverse character!death, slashy undertones, wildy inaccurate dealings with canon, my complete lack of knowledge of all things related to proper Hallowe'en legends but they're wizards, and i had fun making it all up!, snape, non-beta'd

_characters: _harry, sirius, draco (yes, draco)

* * *

_0:00AM_

* * *

. 

The first morning Harry woken with the strange and unearthly feelings of being confined by cloying webs of darkness, he'd honestly chalked it off as indigestion (it had been start of term feast, and he had indulged himself a little much), and promptly forgotten about the matter.

So the second morning he'd awoken to such implacable and unjustifiable emotions he'd already forgotten the first of such mornings and found it just as easy to brush off the second, unwittingly, time around.

However, these odd mornings with their annoyingly insistent and completely ridiculous _feelings_ persisted. And they, it seemed inexorable, increased as the days left before All Hallow's Eve ticked by.

Now, Harry, while not being the most "wizardly-culture-steeped" boy of Hogwarts, was neither ignorant nor stupid. He knew what Hallowe'en represented and he knew that these _frequent,persistant,breath-takingly**familiar**safe_ dreams couldn't be just some simple coincidence.

In fact, he'd become so certain that his Dreams had some sort of special meaning, that he could, just as honestly as he'd denied the first one that morning after his return to Hogwarts, say he wasn't surprised, at all (okay, maybe a little) when that special, precious, _broken_ mirror flashed with a brilliance not uncommonly seen when magnesium burns, though he couldn't have known that last fact.

And so in turn, he wasn't at all surprised that when he rushed, in a moment of horrified panic and curious _trappedlongingguilthopedesperatelygrasping_ fear from his bed to his trunk to check on the last thing ever gifted to him from his now…from _him_. _His_ name hurt too much to even think and the hands that pulled the broken, shattered object of such importance from his school bag trembled with, well, something.

Hope, he'd thought, but all those other emotions were there too, along with many many more. Still, as he grasped the mirror, the same strange, otherworldy feelings that he got from his dreams overwhelmed him in painful, waking reality. For, as he turned the object over in his hands and removed the bit of silk he'd found to wrap it in, he saw something that definitely **did **surprise him – and very great was that surprise indeed.

On that cold morning-but-still-night of Hallowe'en in the drafty sixth year Gryffindor Dormitories, there was something on the surface of that terribly precious object, something that shouldn't have been there. Harry's eyes widened further, infitesimally, and his mouth formed an imperfect oh of utter unbelieving. In the dark, murky surface, something was becoming visible.

A vastly pale hand reached forward, and pulled back the murk as though it were cloying webs of spun darkness. Following the emergence of light and the retreat of the hand was a face, or more specifically, eerily sane bright grey eyes. Surrounding those eyes and deeply-shadowed pale countenance was more of that spun darkness, although, to be fair, it wasn't of the cloying-web variety.

Harry fell off his bed in shock, thankfully dropping the mirror in it rather than the floor.

"_Sirius…?"_

Loud, boisterous, humorous, real, laughter greeted the pained groan that popped from Harry's mouth as his tail bone met the stone floor intimately. Tense, important silence reigned when his righted himself and picked up the mirror once more.

"_Harry, yes, Harry it's me."_ Tears were present on both sides of the clear gleaming surface marred only by the splashes of wet from Harry's.

"_Shh, Harry-dear, it's alright. But now is not the time, I need you to do something for me."_

Harry sniffled loudly and tried his best to stop the tears, but really, could he help it any more than that? It was Sirius, _Sirius_ for Somebody's Sake, and he just wasn't sure this wasn't all some elaborate dream, like the weird ones he'd been having lately. But for the sake of the hope he felt, he leaned forward, almost pressing his nose to the mirror, and nodded quickly.

"Yes, anything, anything." Nothing more need be said, his eyes spoke the rest and Sirius smiled tightly, but truely, it was Sirius, back at him.

"_You'll have to come, now, today, before Midnight."_ He seemed to understand Harry's look of confusion, and all the questions it asked just as easily as when they'd been mere centimetres apart without the smooth, sleek, wetness-mottled barrier between them – well and the very realm of time and death itself.

"_All Hallows Eve is the only time when this world and yours are open to each other, Harry. You'll have to come now if we're to have any chance of pulling me back through the Veil." _Sirius had a grim look on his face, but determination and trust shone brightly in his brightly-shining grey, sane eyes. Harry nodded in understanding, already planning what he would do: get dressed, grab his wand, broom, and invisibility cloak, and leave for the Ministry at once.

"_Well, and you'll have to bring Malfoy, too." _He added, almost as if it were an afterthough. _"I doubt you'd be able to get Narcissa to come and there's no point to even mentioning Bellatrix…"_ Sirius trailed off, strangely indifferent of the woman that had cursed him into this predicament in the first place.

"M-malfoy" Harry spluttered.

Smiling amusedly at Harry's strangled half-shout, Sirius continued. _"Yes, Malfoy. Anyways, this connection is about to break up on me. Just do what I said and trust me. It'll work out. And don't worry about the repercussions _(repercussions, was that really Sirius?)_ we'll deal with them later." _Sirius smiled that achingly _Sirius _grin at Harry as the mirror clouded over, resuming is swirling, murky darkness again.

"Malfoy!?"

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End file.
